RACEDAY PREVIEW: PREMIERSHIP PAIRS – ROUND 5

By Henry Chard

All the details ahead of the fifth round of the Premiership Pairs.

WHEN & WHERE

The ‘Tru Mix’ Witches pairing travels to Leicester for the fifth round of the Premiership Pairs at the Beaumont Sports Complex on Tuesday 25^th October which starts at 7.30pm.

TEAMS

IPSWICH: Jason Doyle, Danny King, Anders Rowe (RS). Team Manager: Ritchie Hawkins

KING’S LYNN: Richard Lawson, Richie Worrall, Jason Edwards (RS). Team Manager: Alex Brady

PETERBOROUGH: Chris Harris, Benjamin Basso, Jordan Jenkins (RS). Team Manager: Rob Lyon

SHEFFIELD: Jack Holder, Adam Ellis, Connor Mountain (RS). Team Manager: Simon Stead

WOLVES: Luke Becker, Steve Worrall, Joe Thompson (RS). Team Manager: Peter Adams

BELLE VUE: Brady Kurtz, Matej Zagar, Tom Brennan (RS). Team Manager: Mark Lemon

REFEREE: W. Jarvis

PREMIERSHIP PAIRS TABLE

Team	Points
Ipswich	38
King’s Lynn	26
Sheffield	24
Belle Vue	22
Wolverhampton	10
Peterborough	8

TICKETS

Tickets are available on the gate and in advance here. The meeting will also be streamed online here. A BSN+ subscription is required to watch. Each round can be purchased individually, priced at £12.99. BSN’s web URL is watch.britishspeedway.co.uk. BSN also has an App which is now available on Amazon Fire TV and on all IOS (Apple) devices.

THE STORY

The ‘Tru Mix’ Witches pairing heads to Leicester on Tuesday for the fifth round of the Premiership Pairs. The round was due to be held at Sheffield but has been moved to Leicester due to stadium unavailability. Ipswich lead the competition having won the last three rounds at Ipswich, King’s Lynn and Wolverhampton. The lead is a healthy one with second place King’s Lynn 12 points behind, but the Stars, Sheffield and Belle Vue can all still catch the Witches with a strong fifth round showing at Leicester as they look to close the gap at the top before the sixth round at the National Speedway Stadium. Wolverhampton and Peterborough are both out of contention.

Team manager Ritchie Hawkins once again fields number one Jason Doyle for this round whilst Danny King comes in for Troy Batchelor with Anders Rowe as the ‘Rising Star’. Doyle has been sublime everywhere he has gone in British speedway this season and has been ever-present in this competition racking up the points.

King partnered Doyle to victory in Round 3 at King’s Lynn and is back in the side for the trip to Leicester. The skipper rode for the Lions in 2017 and 2018 whilst Rowe was also a Lion earlier in 2022 and is guaranteed at least one ride as part of the regulations.

HOW IT WORKS

The competition is a new addition to the calendar for 2022 with all six Premiership clubs staging a round throughout the season. Each club will have two riders and a ‘Rising Star’ at each round with scores accumulated over all six rounds before the overall aggregate winner is declared after the final round of the competition at Belle Vue in September. 12 points will be awarded to each round winner, eight points to second, six points to third, four points to fourth, two points to fifth and no points to sixth.

There will be 15 qualifying heats of action at each round with the top scoring team from the qualifying heats going directly to the final. The teams placed in second and third will compete in a semi-final with the winning side from that race progressing to the final to decide the round winners. Each team has five qualifying heats each and the ‘Rising Star’ must take at least one ride during the meeting. The points scoring system for the competition in each race will be 4-3-2-0.

FROM THE BOSS

Ipswich ‘Tru Mix’ Witches team manager Ritchie Hawkins gives us his pre-match thoughts…

“We will look to win the meeting again and seal the overall win in the fifth round but it will be another strong line-up so it will be tough to win another round. We need to get as many points as possible to make sure we go into the last round in as strong a position as possible. We have Doyley and Danny, so I feel like we have a strong pairing.

“We had a little fitness doubt over Danny with his broken finger, but he came through Monday at Sheffield fully fit, and he has important meetings with Poole as well. Danny has been at Leicester a few times with Poole this year and has done very well.

“It is probably better for everyone other than Sheffield because it is an even playing field and there is no home track advantage.”

THE LINE-UP

Sheffield have Grand Prix rider Jack Holder in their side alongside Adam Ellis for the second round running. King’s Lynn have brought in Richie Worrall for this round who rides for Leicester in the Championship, and he is partnered by Richard Lawson with the Stars sitting second in the table going into the penultimate round. The recently crowned Premiership champions Belle Vue have chosen skipper Brady Kurtz and have brought in Matej Zagar to replace the injured Max Fricke. Peterborough have ever-present Chris Harris in their pair with Benjamin Basso in for his debut alongside him. Wolves bring Steve Worrall back into their side and give a debut to Luke Becker in the competition.